This Halloween, the Recycle Now Home Composting campaign is teaming up with TV presenter Philippa Forrester to encourage Cumbria residents to make the most of their pumpkins this autumn - instead of sending them to landfill sites.

Every year, one million pumpkins are sold across the country, and the vast majority of these are carved into Jack- O' - Lanterns for celebrations on the 31st October and tossed in to the bin once Halloween is over.

This Halloween, Recycle Now is reminding everyone that as well as using the shells for carving, you can also make use the insides of the pumpkins to make many delicious recipes such as pumpkin lasagne, pumpkin soup or pumpkin pie.

In addition, any bits of the pumpkin that aren't used - such as the seeds and the old lantern shell - can be added to your home composting bin, where they will break down safely and help provide a nitrogen rich ingredient to make compost, which is a nutritious addition to your garden soil.

With compost bins available from as little as £8 from www.recyclenow.com/compost, there has never been a better time to start home composting.

Philippa Forrester, mother of three and former Tomorrow's World presenter, says: "Like most children, my sons look forward to Halloween almost as much as Christmas, and take delight in helping me to carve the pumpkins we grow in the garden into the scariest faces possible!

"We save the innards of the pumpkin and then make pumpkin soup together - they see it as part of the process, because it's awful to throw so much of a delicious vegetable away.

"Once Halloween is over, we take pleasure in cutting up the lantern and adding it to the compost bin, where we can watch it break down in to nutritious compost.

"What's more, we can use the compost to grow pumpkins for next year, completing the organic cycle and ensuring we have fresh, delicious fruit and vegetables in our garden for autumns to come."

By minimising food waste with creative cookery and composting the inedible parts of fruit and vegetables such as pumpkin shells, we can divert a huge amount of organic waste from landfill sites. When sent to landfill, the organic waste breaks down without oxygen and produces methane - a greenhouse gas. When added to the compost bin, the waste breaks down aerobically, and no methane is produced, which is good news for the environment.

Compost bins are available from £8. To find out more, visit www.recyclenow.com/compost or ring 0845 077 0757. For ideas on pumpkin recipes and more information on how to get composting, visit www.recyclenow.com/compost